5 Affordable Care Act (ACA) Name Department, Institution Course Instructor Date Affordable

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Name

Department, Institution

Course

Instructor

Date

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

The Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act (PPACA) created in the year 2010 sought to enhance the quality of care in America. Many Americans do not have an access to quality healthcare for a variety of reasons, which are their socioeconomic factors such as employment and income, race, or ethnicity. The PPACA, which is mainly termed as the ACA, shows the US government’s effort in decreasing unnecessary expenses in the healthcare sector, increasing care access, and enhancing its delivery. Many environmental and personal factors, such as the patient’s satisfaction, individual characteristics, care delivery, health policy, as well as the use of care influence one’s access to healthcare. However, ACA has played a significant role in improving the delivery of care and expanding insurance coverage. For Instance, the policy allowed states to significantly expand adults’ Medicaid eligibility, especially those with low incomes. Additionally, ACA provided a marketplace in which Americans could purchase comprehensive private insurance plans. These plans provided in the ACA are affordable to people with moderate and low incomes, and they can as well obtain federal financial help to minimize their out-of-pocket expenses and premiums. Thus, the ACA has helped to reduce the number of people uninsured in the US.

McMorrow, S. (2021). Stabilizing and strengthening the Affordable Care Act: Opportunities for a new administration. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, 46(4), 549-562.

The ACA law has improved access to healthcare services and reduced the number of uninsured people in America in the last decade. However, Trump’s administration weakened the law by shortening the period for open enrollment in the government’s marketplace (McMorrow, 2021). Additionally, Trump’s administration negatively influenced the effects of the ACA by revising the public charge rule, enrollment funding while still reduced its outreach. McMarrow (2021) asserts that Biden’s administration needs to take the opportunity to reverse some of the changes that were implemented by Trump’s leadership, as an approach to ensure affordability and access to healthcare. According to McMarrow (2021), the passage of the ACA law in 2010 marked the beginning of affordable and accessible healthcare services to many Americans. For instance, the law enabled states to significantly expand the adults Medicaid eligibility for the low-income earners. Due to the influence of ACA, the District of Columbia and other 36 states have enrolled the newly eligible adults. McMarrow (2021) notes that ACA provided a marketplace where Americans could buy private health insurance plans, which were previously prohibited against the citizens with various health problems. More so, the law allowed people to purchase insurance plans that were unavailable due to price prohibitions. The ACA law, through its coverage expansion, has played a significant in reducing the number of uninsured Americans by approximately 20 million people. McMarrow (2021) indicates that Biden’s new administration can use the ACA law to expand access to healthcare services. Thus, McMorrow’s (2021) study will be important in the ACA research because it discusses how the government structures influence how the plan operates.

Brown, E., White, B., Jones, W., Gebregziabher, M. & Simpson, K. (2021). Measuring the impact of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on access to primary care using an interrupted time-series approach. Health Research Policy and Systems, 19(77), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-021-00730-0

Healthcare delivery features and health policy reforms tend to influence the access to care by individuals. For instance, the ACA policy was implemented in 2010, with the hope of improving the quality of care, increasing its access, as well as, decreasing healthcare costs. In the Brown et al. (2021) research study, the scholars sought to examine the influence of the ACA Medicaid expansion on the rates of preventable hospitalization. Despite the healthcare legislation aiming to ensure equity in healthcare, many citizens in America do not access quality care because of their socioeconomic factors such as employment, income, ethnicity, or race. However, the ACA law modified Medicaid eligibility to allow the people without dependents and those with low incomes to be eligible for the coverage. The law also required individuals to obtain their insurance covers, in which a failure to the act would result in a tax penalty. Additionally, the ACA expanded Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the poverty levels of the federal government while still allowing kids to remain in their parent’s health insurance covers until they reached 26 years old (Brown et al., 2021). Using available hospitalization data in states such as Arizona, New York, New Jersey, and Kentucky, which expanded their Medicaid on January 1, 2014, Brown et al. (2021) assessed the effects of ACA in reducing the cases of preventable hospitalizations. Brown et al. (2021) confirmed that the states that expanded their Medicaid had a slight decrease in the rates of preventable hospitalizations with time. Therefore, Brown et al. (2021) provide significant information on the impacts of ACA in reducing preventable hospitalizations rates, therefore important for the current study.

Rosales, R., Takeuchi, D. & Calvo, R. (2020). After the Affordable Care Act: The effects of the health safety net and the Medicaid expansion on Latinxs’ use of behavioral healthcare in the US. The Journal of Behavioral Health Sciences and Research, 48(2), 183-198.

In the US, the Latinxs tend to have lower access to behavioral healthcare services compared to the other groups. Rosales et al. (2020) assert that ACA sought to minimize the healthcare disparities through increased funding of the health safety net institutions. Additionally, the policy sought to expand the public health insurance eligibility criteria. Rosales et al. (2020) explain that before the ACA law in 2010, Latinxs were the ethnic-racial group with most people that lacked health insurance covers in the US. Lack of insurance covers hinders Latinx from accessing behavioral health services when necessary because of the financial burden. It is important to note that public health insurance has helped low-income clients to offset many of these costs. However, the limited eligibility criteria tend to bar most Latinx from these insurance covers (Rosales et al., 2020). The ACA law played a significant role in the Latinx case because it expanded the eligibility of the public health insurance covers to the most vulnerable population living in the US. As an approach to decrease healthcare disparities ACA increased the access of government funding to the community behavioral healthcare centers, enabling them to offer healthcare services to populations from low-income backgrounds despite their insurance coverage, and migratory status. Rosales et al. (2020) provide significant information on how the ACA has helped to reduce healthcare disparities, thus important in the current study.

Glied, S. (2021). Continue moving forward on the Affordable Care Act Path. Am J Public Health, 111(4), 612-613.

The health care costs tend to be excessive in the US because of the prices in the system. Glied (2021) explains that the government needs to be directly involved in the pricing of healthcare services. For instance, the government can be involved in the pricing through negotiation or direct regulation, by establishing the backstop prices, and through the use of public health insurance plans. Glied (2021) indicates that for conservative policy analysts to influence the current nation, they need to be involved in solving the problem with the US healthcare costs. The Glied (2021) research is concerned about Stuart Butler, who has played a significant role in market-oriented health policy analysis for more than 30 years. In his work, Butler has always advocated for the implementation of a universal health care system in the US. Glied (2021) emphasizes the need for conservative thinkers such as Butler for the US to have significant health reforms. Butler is a person that advocates for the replacement of the existing tax exclusion of the employer-sponsored insurance premium payments. He also emphasizes the need to have a market with private insurers that sell insurance programs that have federally funded basic benefits. Butler also emphasizes the need for a mandate that requires people to buy health insurance covers. Therefore, the author’s research is important in the study because it provides significant information on how policy analysts impact the implementation of the ACA.

References

Glied, S. (2021). Continue moving forward on the Affordable Care Act Path. Am J Public Health, 111(4), 612-613.

McMorrow, S. (2021). Stabilizing and strengthening the Affordable Care Act: Opportunities for a new administration. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, 46(4), 549-562.

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